Oil tanned leather

[mojave]

Good morning all,

I have a customer that wants a wallet, gun belt, and holster, all made from oil tanned leather.  And, all to be tooled.  I have never used oil tanned and can it be dyed and sealed?

Any help would be great full.

Howard

 

 

[Thornton]

Use veg tan and oil or wax it when done.

[Wulfing]

Oil tanned leather can refer to different things. 

I hate chrome tanned leather, even when they call it oil tanned. I hate this trend for using a variant of chrome tanned leather for products traditionally made with veg tanned.

I've only made bags and belts in any quantity for the last 6 months so im new - so have only brought a few offcuts to test oil tanned leather. One that I liked called 'veg tan shoulder softy' This stuff is nice and the bags turned out really well. It's full grain, Really strong and only slightly waxy feel to it. Takes dyes and brands but not stamps very well. The edges burnish as well

Your customer prob means that stuff American companies are using at the moment that is described as pull up leather where it's heavily impregnated with oils and waxes. As you're in America Horween do a nice leather that's part oil tanned and has the pull up effect.

Apart from a positive experience with veg softy shoulders I dont like it, especially for a belt? Maybe line the oil tanned belt with veg tan leather and stitch it to give it the strength a 'gun' belt needs?

PS I dont think you can tool a design onto oil tanned leather

Edited March 24, 2017 by Wulfing

[MADMAX22]

Sometimes part of selling a trade is educating the customer on what they dont know which in leather working can be alot. They probably saw something that referred to oil tan or other items which are fine being made with oil tan leather and wanted that look for there personal items although maybe they dont realize you use vegtan for things like holsters and belts because it can be rather stiff and hold its shape for a long time. 

I would ask the customer for some pics or a better description of what they actually are looking for then you can figure out if and how to accommodate them.

That being said you can line many types of leather with vegtan and it will thus hold its shape however you are depended on the thickness of the vegtan so say you line a 5oz oil tan (chrome tan) with 5oz vegtan its only going to hold its shape as well as the 5oz vegtan will. 

Wickett and craig makes a latigo pull up type leather (due to all the waxes and oils) but I havent bought any as of yet however I doubt it molds very well.